Lunar Ascension

Chapter 3: Revelations

Disclaimer: All things in the Twilight universe belong to Stephenie Meyer and her publishers. The song and lyrics belong to the band and their representatives. Any other copyrighted material included in this story belongs to their rightful owners. Cheers ma dears! Rated M.

Be careful who you're thinking will save you in the end
Maybe we're all just waiting for one beautiful friend
Numbers by Great Northern

Portland was a beautiful city, but where I was headed was way the hell out in the woods, bordering the Mt. Hood National Forest. If I hadn't have been able to track them through sense of smell I would have missed the turning onto their long gravel drive every time I came here. I saw nothing but trees as I wound my way toward the beautiful house.

When it finally came into view, my ancient car finally spluttered on it's last legs. Driving up this hill was not something it relished, which was going to suck balls considering I would have to run everywhere if I couldn't revive it.

"Not necessary," Edward said pulling open my door as I threw it in park. "I'll ask Rosalie to take a look at it, and if it can't be fixed you can borrow one of ours."

I fought the mental comeback to that and Edward chuckled. He'd been around Jacob and me too long to be offended. Nessie may have been half vampire but that didn't mean that Jake wasn't still easily annoyed with them.

"You know him well," Edward answered, closing my door behind me. "If it comes down to loaning you a car you can borrow Jacob's, that way you don't have to put up with the stench."

I shook my head. It was still bizarre having this camaraderie with the Cullens, but after Jacob imprinted on Nessie, they'd become extended family. It had bothered me for a long time, and still did sometimes, but it didn't mean I had to be rude, or that I had to hate them. I was an adult and I was perfectly capable of being polite.

"Marriage suits you, Edward, you've relaxed a lot," I blurted, feeling my cheeks flush. It was a ridiculous notion that I was even able to blush, but apparently the little burning sensation in my cheeks was exactly that.

"I appreciate it, Leah, and I promise you never have to do that again."

"Thank balls for that. Is Jacob around?" I laughed awkwardly.

"He's with Nessie up in the mountains. He should be back in an hour or so. If not you're more than welcome to phase and talk to him that way. I don't mean to be rude, but I heard that you also wanted to talk to Carlisle. He's up in his study."

I raised and eyebrow at him and smirked. "That trick of yours really does come in handy sometimes, doesn't it?"

His laughter followed me as I took off into the house, the moment I was inside the smell hit me and I tried to contain my gagging reflex. I offered a nod to Emmett and Alice who were playing poker on a battered looking table. I could only imagine what the poor thing had been through over time. Emmett wasn't known for being a good loser.

"Hey, Leah. Wanna play a couple hands?" he asked, barely looking up from his cards to acknowledge me.

"No, appreciate the offer though. I'm heading up to see the doc."

When Alice turned around to look at me he moved to swipe a card from the stack, but Alice's tiny hand slammed on top of his making the legs of the table bow. She never said a word to him, and her eyes were on me, so I had no idea how she'd intercepted that.

"Everything okay?" she asked, her perfectly shaped eyebrow high on her forehead. I didn't think I would ever get used to their concern. Every time I was here they did everything in their power to include me and make me feel as at home as they possibly could. There were times when I didn't appreciate it like I should but I knew they meant well.

"Sure, just got a couple of questions," I nodded at the table. "How did you see that? I thought you couldn't see with us around?"

"Oh, I just know Emmett," she sang.

"Good point," I mused, and left them alone to argue as I took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. Their house was beautiful and sans the smell I would have loved to spend more time here. It was peaceful, no one really bothered you either. I'd spent a couple of weeks with them when they'd first moved here. When I wasn't patrolling I'd been in my little corner of the house watching trash TV and eating them out of house and home.

I headed toward the study and knocked on the frame of the open door, and waited to be invited in. It didn't take long for the invite to be extended, the good doctor seemed to have a knack of knowing when to expect someone.

"Come in."

"Hey doc," I replied, offering him a smile as I slid around the frame and into the room. "Do you have a minute?"

"I have several, Jacob told me to expect you."

"And yet off he trot," I teased, leaning against the bookshelf that sat parallel to his desk. "I'm guessing he was pandering to the whimsy of his imprint?"

Carlisle laughed and gestured to the chair facing him. I slid in it hating the way it felt so much more official this way. I'd always hated doctors, even before I'd discovered what I was.

"He was also giving us an opportunity to talk first."

"I always said he was a great alpha," I sighed, sitting forward and picking up the paperweight on the doctors desk. "I know I nixed the experiments a while ago, but I also know you're a super smart guy and would have continued with what information you had, would I be right in my assumption?"

He inclined his head with a bemused smile and templed his fingers in front of him. I knew he was waiting for me to get to the point, I just had to work my way up to it. This wasn't something I was exactly comfortable with and expounding on my flaws was like rubbing salt in the wound. It wasn't that he wasn't patient, he displayed endless patience when it came to things like that, but my anxiety was making me persnickety.

"Do you think it's possible, with all my . . . Deformities, that I may also have skipped the imprinting gene thingy? I mean, I know you must have been studying imprinting, Jake and Nessie are under your nose it's impossible not to see that."

He thought about my discombobulated question. As much as I called him names behind his back, I respected him, and it was for reasons like this. He didn't spout of a mouthful of shit just to hear himself talk, he took everything into consideration.

"It's all dependent on the answers you want to be honest. Do you want philosophical answers, or biological?"

"What's the difference?"

"Philosophically speaking, you're more than capable of imprinting. The Quileutes believe that it's a spiritual connection. It's the other part of your soul finding you and making you complete. Jacob has mentioned that Sam thinks that the partner is chosen because of the reproduction results. Nothing I've seen says that it won't happen for you eventually, Leah."

That made me feel a little better. Having hope was something I'd all but given up on in the past. When I'd been engaged to Sam I'd wanted to start a family as soon as humanly possibly, because we both felt that bond between us. When it was severed it was bad enough, but then I phased for the first time and my body went haywire. I'd all but given up on the opportunity, I'd believed my time had passed.

"Biologically?" I asked.

"As much as I'd like to answer that, I can't. I can only work from scans and x-rays and they have too many variables to get concrete answers. I have no knowledge of your internal bodily functions, so all I have is guess work. When you were coming to me before, you described the symptoms of menopause, but the more I think about it the more I disagree. I think your body went into hibernation, as a wolf it's still very young. In terms of life span, your wolf is still in the infancy stages. I can only imagine that shutting down your human side was a way for it to catch up. The pheromones that we discovered before, excrete when you're stimulated, you're adrenal glands seem to force it into motion. I can only assume that when you find your mate, he will react to that."

"Fuck me running," I sighed, letting my head fall over the back of the chair as I slouched. I couldn't believe this.

"You've experienced a reaction?" The doctor asked, his interest piqued enough to make him forget his need to blink. He was freaking me out a little bit.

I thought about Zach and how I felt about him, I'd spent the last three days with him making out like a pair of teenagers on my couch. He was always a gentleman with me, proving that he was perfectly capable of not having sex immediately. Unfortunately, he always seemed to excuse himself the moment I became aroused and I knew it had something to do with reaction he'd had to me that first day when he'd got me good and pissed off.

If all the signs were pointing to the fact that he reacted to the pheromones, the follow through would be that he was my mate. Yet I didn't have that reaction to him. I really liked him, I was having fun with him, but if he were to walk away and never come back I would get over it. That wasn't supposed to happen with the imprint. According to the display the guys put on I was supposed to be overbearing and over protective of him, there was supposed to be unbridled passion and complete and utter unconditional love and devotion.

Passion, well Zach and I seemed to have buckets full of the shit, but the rest of it was sitting unchecked on my list.

When I looked up at the doctor again he was still watching me with apt fascination, unblinking and unmoving. He looked like a freaking mannequin.

"Okay, can we go with the non statue version of you, this is freaking me out a bit."

Doctor Cullen had the courtesy to look embarrassed by his behavior. "I'm sorry, I know better. You were about to explain that expletive you dropped."

"Oh right, well I met a guy and he seems to uhh . . . He reacts when I get . . ." What was the word he'd used? "Stimulated?"

"But you have no signs of imprinting upon him?"

I shook my head and folded my legs up under me. I was hoping he'd have an explanation for it.

"Any ideas?" I asked, hopeful. Unfortunately, there was no reaction from him whatsoever.

He was obviously deep in thought so I left him alone. I wasn't the most patient person on the face of the planet so my fingers tapped out a rhythm on the arm of the chair I was occupying while my other hand threw the paper weight up and down. It wasn't giving the doctor the peace he needed to think, but it kept me occupied.

"Perhaps . . ." he started, but trailed off into nothingness again.

It couldn't have been a good sign that I'd stumped the doctor, he had answers to most questions we asked. He was good at observation and it was why I'd agree to let him start his experiment with me. I would have stayed too, but the thought of being a lab rat with no glory at the end was too much for me to take. My own insecurities had made me leave.

"The only thing I can deduct from this is that he must have some of the traits you require in a mate. Perhaps he's not the perfect fit but he's close enough to get a reading from you, to react to your arousal."

"My anger too," I said leaning forward and replacing the paperweight. "He pissed me off, and the next thing I know we're up against a wall wondering what the hell had driven us to that."

"Do you see him frequently?"

These were the kinds of questions that freaked me out. He was a medical doctor, but he was also close to all of the people I didn't want knowing about it. The last thing I needed was someone blabbering their mouths off and making things worse for me. The last thing I needed was the endless questions from my brothers in arms.

Listening for signs of life close enough to hear, I decided I was safe.

"I have this week, he was pursuing me and we went on a date, we've been hanging out since then."

The doctor drummed his fingers on the desk looking thoroughly undecided about his next question. I knew it could only mean one of two things so I figured I would go with the most prudent for this conversation and save him the embarrassment.

"We're not screwing." I had such a way with words.

The doctor gave me a small smile and nodded. Indicating that I'd hit the nail on the head and saved him some from having to ask. For a house full of volatile, and sexually active vampires, which I'd had the misfortune of overhearing, they were quizzically prudish when it came to talking about it.

We sat in silence for another ten minutes. I was trying my hardest to be patient, but it never had been my forte. I finally dropped a leg and started bouncing it while I chewed on my nails. When he looked up at me again, it was with a pained expression, so I dropped my hand and gave him an apologetic smile.

"I wish I had answers for you, Leah, but this is all way out of my league. Without extensive tests, and examinations it's going to be impossible to give a definitive answer. Medically, you're sound, and from the reaction of this male, I can only assume that in time it will come for you, but you shouldn't stop living your life on the basis of maybe."

"So I should just live my life?"

"I think it's the only thing you can do."

I'd never been very verbose about my emotions, especially not since my life had changed so drastically. With the pack it just seemed to make them uncomfortable so I'd put it away and moved on without it. It was quite possibly why I was the bitter bitch I had been all these years. That being said, I needed to voice my concerns, I needed them to be heard and acknowledged, even if I didn't get any answers from it.

"What if I hurt him?"

"You're strength is tremendous, but . . ."

"No, Carlisle, what if I emotionally hurt him?" I asked, looking down at my hands in my lap. "I've had to live through that kind of pain and the thought of inflicting it on someone else . . . It scares me."

Carlisle stood up and made his way around the desk. He took a seat next to me and reached out for my hands. It was hard not to flinch when his cold skin came in contact with mine, but I reminded myself that he was a friend and he was doing his best to comfort me.

"Leah, life isn't all sunshine and roses, people get get hurt. You can't let what happened in the past define who you are now. You put on a good show, parading around and being one of the guys, but don't let yourself get caught up in that. Live your life, be who you want to be and the rest will come to you. When you hold back like you are, you don't experience life, your highs will never be as high and your lows, though painful, will not help you grow because you absorb it as anger. You have a lot to overcome, especially being a one of a kind, but embrace it. I know who you are even if you haven't found her yet."

"Well shit, doc, you're gonna make me go all girly and cry," I teased with a smile.

"I don't think that would hurt you either. Just go out there and have some fun. If it gets messy you know you have a huge family of people to fall back on."

He really was making me emotional being as sweet as he was. He seemed to understand the loneliness I felt, without me ever having to say it aloud. I wasn't sure what to say about that.

"You're really good at this."

"I've had centuries of experience."

I chuckled quietly and tried to gather the emotional girl side of myself together. He'd given me a lot to think about and I appreciated that. He knew me well and I could only imagine that years of people watching had filled in the blanks for him. It was things like this that reminded me why we'd gone to bat for them. They were good people, who'd been dealt a shitty hand and turned into the undead, yet they had more humanity than most humans did.

It was good to be reminded of that sometimes.

"Well if you came to visit more often you wouldn't have to be," Edward said, sticking his head around the door. "I was trying not to listen but you were yelling."

I gave him the finger and offered him a genuine smile. I hadn't missed the mind reading thing or the terrible smell, but I had missed them in some capacity. I almost felt guilty for mentally cataloguing them as leeches the last time I thought about them.

"I'm guessing that was for my benefit," Edward chuckled shaking his head. "I just came to tell you that Rose diagnosed your car as scrap metal. Emmett has offered you the Jeep if you want it, he wanted to trade it in anyway."

"You people are insane. You want to give me a Jeep."

Carlisle laughed beside me and released my hands. In his very subtle way he communicated with Edward and got a nod in the form of a response.

"You're part of the family whether you like it or not, and we'd prefer it if you weren't breaking down on the side of the road. We'll call it your birthday and Christmas present. Seeing as Rosalie maintains all the vehicles it also gives us an excuse to see you when it needs maintenance."

"See, crazy. All of you," I laughed.

"You wanna see crazy, you should see the way they're airing it out for you. There's more pine tree air fresheners than I can count hanging on every available surface."

The situation and the way it was being handled could be the work of only one person. I couldn't believe they were letting me take the Jeep. It seemed like every time I turned around they were making me like them more and more. I was finally starting to understand why Seth and jacob liked being around them so much.

"Of course they are. You know I could have just driven home with the windows down."

"I said the same thing, I think Emmett's bored and needed a project," Edward mused.

"Then tell him to build a bird house for crying out loud. You're all super smart yet you couldn't have figured that out?"

Edward walked to the window and looked over the forest. With a quick glance back at me I figured he wanted me to follow, when I did I realized what he was saying. It looked like a lumber yard had exploded back there. There were dog houses, cat trees, bird houses and half a dozen rocking chairs littering the lawn.

"Alice sells them on the internet. It was Nessie's idea."

"Smart kid."

"Exceptionally so," Carlisle commented from behind us making Edward smile proudly.

I stayed for a while longer, just hanging with the family so Jacob wouldn't think I'd come and gone without even waiting to say goodbye. I no longer needed his insight, I didn't need to see through his eyes how tightly bound he was to Renesmee. I already knew.

When he finally showed up I stayed long enough to talk about how school was going and that I'd already spoken to the doctor. He seemed almost put out that I hadn't waited for him, but the truth was it had worked out perfectly. The doctor had given me some sound advice and I more than intended to follow his suggestions. I'd carried around this grudge for so long, I needed to let it go.

One day I would be the bigger person and I would apologize to both Sam and Emily, but that was a ways off. Right now I had some living to do, and I knew exactly who I needed to experience that with.

Authors Note: Poor Leah has no idea what to believe. Carlisle has given her some hope but I still don't think she knows what to do with it. Thanks for reading guys. And for all the awesome reviews! You guys are amazing! I have no idea how to thank you for your responses.

Thank you to my wonderful beta Hev99; she's an amazing writer and a fantastic friend (And for squeezing me in during her hectic schedule!) I have a pretty beta'd chapter to upload but the DinoMac at work doesn't want to play!. She and I have a collaboration profile that I need to link to on my profile! I would also like to thank the wonderful Sabi'Sookie, for being my BFF and pre reading for me and for also collaborating with me, we have another Collab - Harmonic Convergence - That we're currently posting as well. You're awesome girl! I would also like to thank Pinkindeed for all her pre reading skills, and for letting me pre read her amazing stories and for being my knitter extraordiare. (She's knitting me a Brennan Sweater!) Big smooshes to the three of you for being my rocks!

Thanks for reading guys! Mad love to you all ;)

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